Central Line Infection

All Ontario hospitals with an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) are required to publicly report their rates and number of central line infections (CLI) - bloodstream infections.

January, February, March 2015

Number of Central Line
Infection Incidents

Central Line
Infection Rate

QHC Belleville General Hospital

0

0

QHC North Hastings Hospital

N/A

N/A

QHC Prince Edward County Hospital

N/A

N/A

QHC Trenton Memorial Hospital

N/A

N/A

All Ontario Hospitals

14

0.18

The CLI rate is the number of ICU patients (18 years and older) with new central line infections per 1,000 central line days. The infection rate is calculated by the total number of ICU related blood stream infections after 48 hours of central line placement, divided by the total number of central line days for ICU patients.
The Ministry also reports the information for all hospitals on its website at www.ontario.ca

Q&As about Central Line Infections

What are health care-associated infections?
Sometimes when patients are admitted to the hospital, they can get infections. These are called health care-associated infections.

What is QHC doing to improve patient safety?
Patient safety remains the most important priority for Quinte Health Care and this involves ensuring that patients are not at risk for contracting healthcare-associated infections. We have a number of practices in place to help prevent and control infections, including a comprehensive hand hygiene program.

To try to reduce the number of care-associated infections, Safer Healthcare Now! has shared with hospitals a set of best practices that, when used together, can reduce the changes of a patient getting a care-associated infection. We are incorporating these best practices at QHC.

What is a central-line associated blood stream infection?
When a patient requires long-term access to medication or fluids through an IV, a central line is put in place. A central line blood stream infection can occur when bacteria and/or fungi enters the blood stream, causing a patient to become sick. The bacteria can come from a variety of places (e.g., skin, wounds, environment, etc.), though it most often comes from the patient's skin.

Hospitals follow best practices on how to prevent bacteria from entering into a central line. Patients in the ICU often require a central line since they are seriously ill, and will require a lot of medication, for a long period of time.

What can patients do to help reduce their chances of infection?
Patients should always follow instructions given to them by your health care team.
Frequent hand cleaning is another way to prevent the spread of infection. Hand hygiene involves everyone in the hospital, including patients. Click here for more information on hand hygiene.

Click here to read a fact sheet on central line infections from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.